The Conventional, SOF Debate in OIF.

[jcustis]

QUOTE: One from the 101st with lots of helo capability, one a Stryker Brigade with a heavy battalion along. There job would be to be a reaction force to bring the hammer if the SOF assets or Iraqi forces needed assistance.

It seems he may be thinking the the Afghanistan model would have transplanted equally to the Iraq area of operations. We will never know for sure, but I tend to agree with some of the smart folks who have asserted that the fabric of Afghani society made for good SF operations, but Iraq was/is a completely different proposition.

I do agree that more agile forces should have been employed, but the requirement to gain and hold key terrain required a certain footprint. A handful of brigades does not meet that requirement. The quote also leads me to believe that he never set foot in the nasty expanse that is western Al-Anbar Province.

[SSG Rock]

I don't know for certain. But this person currently lives in Thailand and since he seems hesitant to discuss his personal experiences I have deduced that he was on active duty last from the 1980-84 time frame and that his operational experience was predominently in Central America. I do not beleive that he has ever been to Southwest Asia.

[jcustis]

Then I would have to respectfully have to say that he doesn't know what he is talking about, regardless of whether he was trained to run UW.

[SSG Rock]

There does come a point when you have to cut bait. But I'd sure like to some good points in before I abandon the discussion.

[jcustis]

A couple of points I'll throw out:

1. SF forces are great for developing the capablities of an indigenous military force, and that comes at the point of picking sides. What sides would have been chosed had internecine fighting broken out immediately between the Shi'a, Sunnah, and Kurds. Three brigades would have been hard pressed, and it takes like a division (-) to manage Baghdad alone right now?

2. Could we have sustained the employment of SF forces for the almost three years we have been in Iraq, taking into consideration the demands in Afghanistan? It's a simple matter of looking at troops to task. I don't know the composition of 5th Group, but we are not talking about an inexhaustible supply of teams to continue engagement with the populace for an indefinite period of time. At some point the big green machine, as cumbersome as it may be, has to assume some of the responsibilities inherent in re-building a country. SF simply can not do it alone, in my opinion.

3. An SF element went into the town of Ar-Rutbah near the Syrian/Jordan border and executed probably a classic mission to make contacts, organize local governance and basic services, but it was before the insurgency built up its steam. By the time my unit arrived (two rotations after the 82nd Airborne) the town had slid into a nest of low-level insurgents who would kill the mayor just as easily as they would have killed a Marine. Without a sustainable Iraqi Security Force structure (which by the way DID GO AWAY once Saddam fled), I think it's highly improbable that any number of SF personnel could have maintained security for long. If your discussion partner had his way, the result may have been a hodgepodge of reaction forces tied down everywhere, and getting absolutely nothing accomplished.

[SSG Rock]

Thank you for taking the time to offer some comments.

Some of the points that I have used in the discussion thus far, and please correct me if I say anything that makes no sense.

1. A fundemental tenant of invading a country to change its form of government seems to me to be the ability to control terrain. In my view, we didn't have enough troops to occupy any of the towns in the run up country. The mission was to get to Baghdad, our troops did that in stunning fashion and broke just about every record in military history. But in hindsight, had we been able to control the towns would we not have limited the insurgents freedom of movement, at least, made it hazordous to his health?

2. Yes, the Iraqis must pick up the mission of providing for their own defense, but if we had deployed more troops at the outset, we could have provided more effective security, allowing SOF the luxury of conducting more classic SOF tasks like training the natives, snatch and grab ops, etc, while the conventional forces picked up tasks like patrolling, providing security, rebuilding infastructure, advising local governments etc? With more conventional troops to provide security, SASO would have been somewhat easier?

3. The mission in Iraq is simply too big for SOF to handle alone. The deployment of more conventional forces does not amount to offering the insurgents more targets. These are Soldiers we are talking about, with the capability of protecting themselves, indeed conducting offensive operations if necessary.

4. The transformation effort currently underway, began under the guidance of General Shinsecki, not Mr. Rumsfeld.

5. This transformation plan in my opinion is the most audacious the modern Army has undertaken. My opponent, no fan of General Shinsecki, says no this is not true. He claims that more audacious transformations include, the change for a corps to division based force and the transformation from a draft to volunteer force. I don't think the two issues he mentioned even qualify as official Army transformation efforts.

[jcustis]

This transformation plan in my opinion is the most audacious the modern Army has undertaken. My opponent, no fan of General Shinsecki, says no this is not true. He claims that more audacious transformations include, the change for a corps to division based force and the transformation from a draft to volunteer force. I don't think the two issues he mentioned even qualify as official Army transformation efforts.

Concur wholeheartedly...